


you were there and i never noticed until now

by peterandmichelle



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man Far from Home - Fandom, spider-man homecoming
Genre: Angst, Far from home predictions - Freeform, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Michelle is having doubts about Peter Parker - Freeform, Peter just wants to be better - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-23 21:08:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17087765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterandmichelle/pseuds/peterandmichelle
Summary: peter had always known michelle jones. she was the new leader of the decathalon team, a girl who always drew in class, a girl who read a new book everyday. but did he really know her as MJ? or was he looking past her this whole time and never stopped to consider her more than just an observant girl?a bit of my interpretation of peter & mj’s relationship development for the future films.





	1. Chapter 1

Summer vacation in Europe with a bunch of people from Peter’s decathlon team doesn’t seem too much of a bad idea to him.

For Michelle it’s a different story.

Yes, she is the leader of the winning team, and her stellar leadership is being recognized in the form of this month-long trip, but somehow she can’t seem to wrap her head around it.

She doesn’t think she deserves the special treatment. She already feels bad for replacing Liz, a girl she has idolized ever since she was 7, and it hurts that out of all people she had to take her spot from her. She earned the spot, she knew that, but it still doesn’t feel right to her.

When hearing the news of the trip she was completely and utterly confused.

_”What do you mean I earned it,” Michelle glared at Mr. Harrington, “You’re telling me I won us all a vacation to Europe?” She tried to hide the smile that was creeping up on her skin._

_“Michelle! Take the compliment! You really helped us win Nationals. You prepared us all so well and you should be proud of yourself!” Ned encouraged her enthusiastically._

_She appreciated the compliments, especially the one from the quiet boy._

_”You really are great for our team. I’m proud of you as well.” Peter nervously complemented the anxious decathalon leader. He played with his gel-covered hair out of nervous habit and proceeded to glare at the sign in front of him, not knowing where else to look._

_It was the only words Peter spoke at that meeting. Important words, he figured._

_After that, everyone gave their fair share of support for the well-deserved leader, and she couldn’t hide her smile any longer._

Michelle doesn’t have any friends. She used to never have any acquaintances. Now she has plenty of them.

But she doesn’t want that. She wants someone who she can over-share about moments like these when she is truly happy to be on the Earth. She wants someone who she can rant and complain to about the not so good parts of her life as well. She just wants someone there, someone who won’t move, someone who won’t hesitate to listen to her while she has these periods of strong emotions.

As she steps outside her car into the JFK airport to meet the team, she stands apart from everyone else.

As she eats breakfast at Panda Express she sits at the very edge of the table.

And when the team gathers to show each other their boarding passes to see who is neighboring who on the plane, she has no one to share hers with. 

She wonders if anyone else has a situation like that. 

She thinks of Flash. He has a bunch of friends. She thinks of Harry, the new kid. He already has his own group of people who just want to be friends with the new mysterious-looking guy. 

Then she thinks of Peter and Ned. They have each other. They may only have each other, but at least they have something. 

She becomes jealous of them. She starts to pity herself for not having a best friend. Was it her fault? She used to have friends. They all drifted when she started high school. Why did they drift? That question keeps Michelle up at night because she can’t seem to figure out the truth behind her being a loner. 

Then something changes.

She hears mumbles in her left ear.

”Dude, she’s standing there all by herself. She looks sad about it. Just ask her where she is sitting, I don’t know. Make her feel important. I just feel bad.” 

“Ned, I don’t want to pity her. What if she wants to be alone? I don’t want to bother her and she doesn’t exactly seem in good spirits-”

It’s too late for Peter to make excuses. Because Ned pushes Peter and himself and awkwardly tries to force a conversation on him.

“Oh, hey, MJ! Peter was just asking about you, what was it again, Peter?” He gestures towards the tomato friend.

Peter wants to kill him.

”Uh- I, uh, see, I don’t know who I am seated next to and I was just wondering what seat you had? You know, for the plane and all.” He curses inside of his head. Of course she knows he’s talking about the flight.

“15b.” She shrugs, doing a good job at hiding her shock of quiet boy approaching her.

“Cool! I’m 15a, guess you’re stuck with me for 6 hours then.” Peter smiles out of effort, cringing in the meantime at his awkwardness.

“I apologize in advance for any opinions he will ask to you about superheros or other ridiculous stuff. He’s a true nerd, the ones from movies and all that.” Ned laughs, knowing he’s embarrassed the daylight out of Peter.

“Don’t listen to him. Anyway, are we supposed to board now?”

“They just announced 1-15, so yes. We should go.” Michelle realizes she missed the announcement but only remembered from the sign above her stating her and Peter’s seats were boarding on the plane already.

Peter walks towards the big lit up sign that says “1-15 here”, gets out his passport and boarding pass, Michelle following. After going through more security, the two step on the plane together, finding their seats towards the front of the plane. 

Peter whines to himself at not having the window seat. Maybe next time. 

He sees Michelle and steps back so she can get into the window seat, and he follows and sinks himself into the comfy blue airplane seats and closes his eyes.

With Peter’s eyes shut, Michelle quickly glances at him, then turns to the window and gently smiles to herself.

This is one of those moments she was thinking about. She just needs someone to share them to. 


	2. on our way

Peter wakes up after a few hours. He never realized he fell asleep. He’s exhausted from last night’s shenanigans; having a double life is hard on your sleeping schedule.

Collecting his thoughts and attempting to make sense of where he’s at, when he sees Michelle aside him he finally remembers he’s on the flight to London. 

Michelle is sketching the clouds, intensely focused and drawn into her surroundings. No pun intended.

When she adds a splash of color with her light blue colored pencil, that’s when Peter takes notice of her art.

She starts lightly tracing in a blue figure who appears to be somehow floating on a cloud of some sort.

When Michelle adds in red, Peter starts to recognize the floating figure that’s being pieced together on her small sketch pad.

It’s the suit he wore last year. The suit he had left at home. He’s trying to forget about that part of his life, but after examining Michelle’s little sketch of it, he misses it even more.

Just as Peter is about to push aside the regrets of leaving his suit at home, is when he realizes she is drawing spider-man. Why was she drawing spider-man anyways?

“You like Spider-Man?” Peter inquires, his curiosity takes over his tired eyes as he is awakened all of a sudden from his mid-day nap.

“Who doesn’t? He’s like the most relatable superhero out there right now.” She explains her drawing without looking at Peter once.

Relatable? Is that how people see me? Peter thinks. I guess I’m just a 16 year old and all the other Avengers are a lot older than me, and that somehow makes me feel more normal than everyone else? Peter questions Michelle’s opinion.

“That’s true. I think he’s pretty cool. All the others are great too, but yeah, considering he’s probably young from the rumors we have heard, it’s nice to look up to someone around our age.” Peter tells this to Michelle in a way that would make you think he’s rehearsed those sentences multiple times before.

“Exactly. So how old do you think he really is?” Michelle looks up at Peter at this point, expecting a response.

”Uh- I don’t know. Maybe like 18? What do you think?” 

“I think he’s sixteen. And you wanna know something interesting? We’ve talked before.” Michelle focuses back on her drawing, outlining the superhero - adding her final touches.

Peter remembers. He was at DC, trying to save his team from the falling elevator. He remembers that day clearer than he wants to ever remember a day that could have ended in complete disaster and guilt. 

“Really? That’s really great! I’m really jealous right now.” 

She laughs at his increasingly high voice. “You really are his biggest fan, aren’t  you? Well you might be in luck. I think he goes to our school.” 

Peter turns red. “What? What makes you think that?” 

Then she looks at him like she’s carefully examinating everything - his face, his tone, every move. “I just have a feeling. He definitely lives near us for sure. And him saving our team like that, far from where he’s from? I just feel like he has a connection to our school. Don’t you think?” 

He doesn’t want to encourage her thought because he already knows she’s observant. He knows she’s smart at figuring people out. He knows if he entertains her thought then maybe she will be a step closer to unmasking his identity. And he doesn’t want anyone else finding out. He doesn’t want anyone to know about the part of him he’s been having mixed feelings about ever since the war. 

“That’s a fair point,” he decides, “I still don’t know whether he goes here or not. But of course I’d want to know. Because I’m his biggest fan and all, like you said!” 

She nods in agreement, smiling ever so slightly, and returning to her new found activity of observing the clouds outside her window. 

Looking out the window, she asks, “Why did you approach me today, anyways?” 

So she knew it wasn’t by choice. Fuck. Peter thinks.

”What do you mean? I just wanted to know where you were sitting.” He tries to cover up his messy attempt of being nice to her from this morning.

But it doesn’t pass for her, of course. She’s smarter than to just let it go. “Listen, Parker. Don’t act like you came up to me all nicely by choice. I know you’ve always thought of me as annoying, I can see it in your face every time we are talking. You should learn how to hide your feelings better, Parker.” 

He really didn’t mean to hurt her feelings. He clearly screwed up and he kind of doesn’t know why she isn’t taking it well; he stupidly thought at the time that giving her his attention would only flatter her and nothing else. But he was wrong.

“I’m sorry if I didn’t seem genuine. And you’re not annoying. Of course I don’t think you are. You were amazing for our team as well! I just want to be friends-”

“Don’t bullshit me, Parker. Since when were you remotely interested in becoming my friend at all? Because you sure as hell haven’t made the effort these past two years of me being all alone there at your lunch table. And you expect me to believe that, I don’t know, maybe because I won a stupid competition that I’ve earned your respect?” 

She was right. He never did anything. His friend had to do everything for him to even notice her this whole time. He feels terrible. “I’m sorry, Michelle, I mean- MJ. The truth is,” she stares at him for what feels like the longest ten seconds of his life, clearly hurt showing in her eyes, “Ned asked me to talk to you. I’m sorry. He said you were all alone and we both felt bad, and he pushed me to start a conversation with you. But I do want to be friends.” 

That was the last straw. It annoys her Peter doesn’t do anything by himself, when she’s been getting through life by herself this whole time. It kills her to hear him admit that he truthfully didn't want to talk to her, even though he said what she wanted to hear. 

“You pity me.” She’s holding back tears at this point. 

“No I d-”

“Lay off the excuses, Peter. I already had doubts about this trip and maybe I’m right. I didn’t deserve it, I don’t, and I never will.”

Peter feels awful, knowing he is the cause to her feeling this way, “No! You deserve every bit of it. It’s me who doesn’t deserve to fly on this trip with someone as great as you. I’m sorry.” 

“Sorry isn’t enough, Peter. Know that. I know your intentions. And none of them show you’re actually interested in being my friend,” she looks at the ground in disappointment, “I’m tired. Please leave me alone.” 

Michelle turns away from him, laying her head on a soft blue pillow, dozing off to sleep.

Peter feels chills throughout his whole body, and his eyes water up and he can feel the guilt surrounding him in the form of tears. One freely falls down his cheek, hitting his dark blue jeans and melting into his anxious skin. 

Is she ever going to forgive me? Peter thinks. 

Peter forces himself back to sleep, and dreams about his suit. He wants it back. Whenever he goes through tough days like these he usually has his second life to distract him from the terrors of his normal life. Now he doesn’t have that. Waking up from his dream, he feels even worse. 

**Author's Note:**

> im trying okay but i will definitely be able to update very often since christmas break is soon :) (that includes my other au i recently posted)


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